Google Shopper gets updated; +1 and save your favorite products

Google has released yet another update to Google Shopper today that brings some of their newest features to the application, bringing added functionality for all. This update brings quite a few warmly welcomed features, such as:

The folks from PrivacyStar are celebrating a bit after their sponsored Porsche 911 GT3 driven by Patrick Long won the 2011 GT Drivers Championship in the Pirelli World Challenge at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia.

If you're not familiar with PrivacyStar, they offer a complete solution for call blocking, text blocking, call lookup and even caller ID on Android devices. The app offers a free 7-day trial in the Android Market but not wanting to leave anyone out of their celebrations, they've offered up some free PrivacyStar licenses to Android Central readers.

If you're looking to win one of the four licenses available just drop a comment in the Android Central forums and we'll pick some winners for Monday, until then -- you can jump on past the break for the full press release as well as a link to the 7-day free trial of PrivacyStar.

We have seen Light Grid live wallpaper for Android before, and personally it is one of my favorite wallpapers to use. Keeping up with their holiday spirit they have added a nice set of Halloween icons to be used so you can spruce up your device with some ghosts and skulls. What better time than now to get your device all Halloween'd up? Download links are after the break.

Android App Review: Tuner - DaTuner Pro

For anyone who has ever been involved in playing a musical instrument, you know the importance of tuning, which is why DaTuner is for you.

DaTuner is a highly accurate strobe tuner that not only automatically locks onto the pitch you're playing, but also tells you the register you're playing in along with how many cents sharp or flat you are. It's a welcome change from the needle-reading we're all accustomed to, and it's as intuitive as it is functional.

DaTuner also boasts a highly functional settings menu that lets you change everything from the sensitivity to the responsiveness, the color for notes that are sharp or flat, and even the temperament, for those who subscribe to the notion of just intonation.

A pitch pipe is also included in DaTuner, for those who prefer to tune to a relative pitch, although it has a tendency to be a little buggier than just tuning using the phone's microphone. Still, it works often enough, and in the event it doesn't, there's still an incredibly powerful tuner at your disposal.

For the Android-loving musician, I think DaTuner Pro is easily the best tuner you can have on your device. I used to give that title to gStrings, but DaTuner has proven to be so powerful, easy to use, and accurate, it'd be foolish to not use it.

DaTuner comes in three varities: free, donate (with a few more features), and experimental (for those who want to be on the cutting edge of tuning technology). The donate version is $2.34, but when dedicated tuners cost upwards of $40 or more, this is an absolute steal.

Microsoft might have just made any update moot with the announcement of a major update to the Xbox 360 and the announcement of slew of new content partners worldwide. Movies. Games. Sports. News. Worldwide. Coming around the holiday season. Ouch.

Read over that list again. Those are just the new additions, folks. And YouTube -- probably the biggest draw on Google TV next to Pandora and Amazon -- is among them. This is going to be an uphill battle now, that's for sure.

Maybe Google's got something up its sleeve for Google TV. But a shovel might well need to be one of the tricks.

Google Docs updated for Android tablets

Google Docs just got itself a nice little update. The big one for us is that it's now optimized for tablets -- and that makes a big difference for how much time we're willing to spend looking at a spreadsheet on a smaller screen. Here's the full changelog:

Set your alarms, folks. We're going to get a second dose of keynote awesomeness on Tuesday when the CEOs of Sprint, Verizon and AT&T all take the stage together for the opening keynote at CTIA in San Diego.

Think back to March, at the spring show. Just days before these joined CNBC's Jim Cramer for a pretty frank discussion, AT&T announced its plans to purchase T-Mobile, and the gloves came off. CTIA's dubbed this one "Return of the Titans," and it should be interesting, to say the least, when they're back for Round 2 in San Diego next Tuesday. And, as always, we'll be there. Stay tuned.

That's a feature that never quite took off like we'd hoped. We first saw it on the Nexus One with the desktop dock and car dock, and later on the myTouch 4G, and it's back on the HTC Rhyme. There's no fiddling with plugs when seating the phone in a dock. Just place and go. Sure, you have to plug the dock into a power source. But chances are your dock is pretty stationary.

Put it this way. Once you go plugless, you're going to have a hard time going back. Check out what we're talking about after the break.

Flick Golf! for Android released

Full Fat Games has announced that Flick Golf! is now available in the Android Market. The unique style of gameplay is sure to be a hit. Like the name implies all you do is flick. It sounds easy, but mastering the technique is fun and challenging.

Unlike some other golf games you don't see or use any clubs. You flick your finger to do everything, inlcuding teeing off, applying top spin, backspin, etc. Points are awarded based on how close to the pin you get. Graphics are top notch and look great. The game has a lot of polish to it, and I haven't experienced any issues while playing it. If you like it give a shout in the forums and let everyone know what you think.

Casio G'zOne Commando receives official Gingerbread update

Verizon Wireless has released the official Android 2.3 build for the Casio G'zOne Commando, available via OTA update now. In addition to Gingerbread, software version C771M070 adds a number of performance improvements, including reduced lag and a fix to the proximity sensor. If it hasn't pushed to your Commando yet, you can manually initiate the update (Menu Key > Settings > About phone > System Updates > Check New). Full update instructions, as well as a list of features and improvements, can be found at the source link.

Android running on the HP TouchPad a different way

If you bought a TouchPad during the fire sale, and decided that you like using webOS while waiting for hackers to get a full Android port up and running, news in the Pre Central forums might get you a little excited. Android's not the only Linux based OS that people love to hack, and an enterprising young fellow in China has figured out how to get Android running inside a card like a normal webOS app. Looking at it, it appears to either be an virtual machine or a variant of the Android SDK emulator running, so expect a lot of functionality but at a slower pace because of the emulation layer. With some further tweaking, many of the software issues can be ironed out, and maybe even a bit more support for the hardware can be found -- those webOS hackers are a crafty bunch.

Until a good (read final) dual boot solution for Android and webOS is found for the TouchPad, this looks like it might be the ticket if you're finding the Palm HP App Catalog a bit lacking, but don't want to give up the TouchPad's great web browser. And heck, most of you guys bought the TouchPad solely to hack the hell out of it, right? Here's your chance.

HTC Amaze 4G 'coming soon' to TELUS

The HTC Amaze 4G is headed to Canada on the TELUS network. HTC's latest high-end phone is listed as "coming soon" on the Canadian carrier's website. The Amaze 4G is a pretty amazing phone, if you'll mind the pun. Rocking a 4.3-inch qHD display, Sense 3.0, a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, Android 2.3.4 and an 8MP rear camera, it's sure to offer an exceptional experience.

No release date has been announced, but as soon as we hear something, you'll know. Until then, hit up our HTC Amaze 4G Forum.

Android Game Review: Shadowgun

The day has finally come. It has arrived. It's here. (Well, for us -- the rest of you get it soon). Shadowgun, Madfinger Games's excellent looking, console-quality action/shooter is coming to Tegra-powered Android devices. From the moment Shadowgun was announced, I was itching to get my greasy little fingers all over it and shoot whatever it is they're shooting in those trailers.

You play as Bruce Willis John Slade, mercenary extraordinaire, sent on a mission to capture (but not kill) the nefarious Dr. Simon from wherever he's hiding. You're accompanied by your robot lady-companion, S.A.R.A. So you hop in your mercenary spaceship and hightail it to the nearest evil genius hiding spot.

Standing in your way are hordes of bad guys (no, I don't know what they really are), obstacles, and gigantor bosses (like the Cyberlobster). So what do you do? Take your trusty machine gun and blow enough holes in all of them to keep on trucking through the muck, obviously.

The whole shindig is voice acted (and captioned!), which is done really well. Sure, sometimes the text doesn't match up with Slade's voice (like when ALL CAPS suggest he's yelling but he's mumbling to himself), but the fact they managed to voice act an entire game this long is insane.

Graphically, I feel like I'm playing Gears of War on my Electrify (or Thrive). That might sound like a cop out, but it's true. You control a big, burly man who carries a big gun and shoots things with graphics that look like they're worthy of blockbuster hits we're seeing on consoles. It's stunning and I think it's AWESOME. After Emissary of War, I was beside myself at how nice that game looked. Shadowgun takes those effects up to 11, if you will, and really spoils the player.

Fortunately, the graphics scale well from a phone to a tablet, but the controls are definitely tighter on the phone. It makes sense. Smaller screen, it's easier to hold, you don't have to move your thumb as much, I get it. Still, be aware that when you're gaming on a tablet, there's definitely a chance you'll accidentally stretch your thumb way too far out right when you're in a critical part of your fight against Cyberlobster, and well, at least you get to restart at your checkpoint.

Adding to the awesome, Shadowgun is big. I haven't managed to play through the whole game yet, but the trailer up there promises six hours of gameplay, and six hours on a mobile device sounds pretty sweet to me, especially if I get to gawk at super sweet eye candy for all of it. To really maximize your time, you could always start off on easy mode so you get three play throughs on it (on all of its difficulty modes). There's also achievements to be had and bonus cards to be collected, so once you've fulfilled your merc contract, don't think you can just put Shadowgun down and walk away.

If you've got a Tegra device, you'll want to get this game. There's no reason not to. It's the finest looking game we've had to grace our Android-green shores, and with all the features it's packing, you'd be silly to pass it on by.

Now we just wait for release.

Demo video and screen shots are after the break.

Update: Just got word that Shadowgun's going to cost $4.99 when it hits the Market. No date's announced yet, just "soon."

Big Android BBQ Video Recap!

Hey everyone, it's your favorite video correspondent on Android Central, Ashley Esqueda -- this time, I had the pleasure of heading to Austin, Texas, for the Big Android BBQ on Sunday, and if you didn't make it ... well, you missed a great time. Not only did I get to meet the greatest editor in chief of all time, Phil Nickinson, I also got to hang out with the coolest people on the planet: Android fans, celebrities, and community champions!

If you're not familiar with what the Big Android BBQ is, the name says it all: it's when Android fans from around the world collide with OEMs, contests, conferences, and delicious, delicious barbecue. Aaron Kasten, founder of AndroidSWAG and the Big Android BBQ, organized the first event last year, and it was such a success that he (and some very incredible and generous volunteers) planned an even bigger get together for their second event. I guarantee next year's event is even bigger, better, and full of all the excitement and energy the crowd brought this year.

Over the entire BBQ weekend, lots of events and activities commenced: a bar crawl in Austin for 21+ attendees; a full day's worth of Android-centric conferences including CyanogenMod, HTC, and XDA Developers; a pre-BBQ pool party at the official hotel of the event; a scavenger hunt on Sunday; and the BBQ itself, featuring giveaways, merriment, and even a marriage proposal!